Word to the wise...
I would suggest establishing a dependable backup scheme to provide automatic protection for anything/everything you have which is valuable, important, or irreplaceable... not to mention data you rely on for work.
(1) An external USB drive (
like this 2TB USB 3.0 drive) is very inexpensive for use as backup storage.
(2) Next, take automatic weekly or even bi-weekly "system image" backups of your C-partition (and small "system reserved" partition, since BOTH are required to be restored as a pair in case of disaster) using a highly regarded software product such as
Macrium Reflect Free. Or you can go with non-free but very reasonably priced
Macrium Reflect Standard (which is what I use) so as to get additional features such as the very worthwhile automatic "generational pruning" to delete the very oldest versions of backups when new ones are created.
Or, get a similar product from another vendor. But you want a reasonably current "system image" backup being taken regularly and automatically, to guarantee easy recovery from an unexpected disaster that ruins your Windows integrity or operability.
(3) Finally, using a top-rated software product like
NovaBACKUP (or even Macrium Reflect Standard, which can be used for this "data" purpose as well as for its previously described "system image" purpose) take automatic scheduled monthly FULL "data" backups of EVERYTHING on all of your drives and partitions on the 1st of each month. This FULL backup should also include your C-partition so as to pick up all your "\My Documents" files (though you can omit the \Windows folder on C since your "system image" backups of C are what you'll use to recover from a Windows-related disaster on C).
In addition, take automatic scheduled daily INCREMENTAL "data" backups of EVERYTHING that you're also backing up completely with your FULL monthly backup jobs. This daily INCREMENTAL backup is intended to backup only what you've created/changed/renamed in the past day, i.e. since yesterday's INCREMENTAL backup or FULL backup. Running a daily INCREMENTAL backup for "data" guarantees that you will NEVER lose anything (say through accidental deletion or corruption) which existed as of last-night's backup (whether INCREMENTAL or FULL) or on some prior backup. Your maximum exposure is what you might have worked on just today, since last night's backup.
By retaining multiple "monthly FULL+INCREMENTAL" complete sets of backups, and by using sophisticated software such as NovaBACKUP which can be requested to automatically recover ANYTHING in your entire backup collection system based on "most current version as of a specific date/time" (where you can slide the requested as-of date/time yourself), you will be able to easily recover ANYTHING that existed anywhere on your system on any day over the past few months (without your knowing specifically which backup datasets contained the particular version you are now requesting be recovered, which is the "most current version as of that specified date/time")... as long as it existed when that night's backup job was run so that it is now available at least once in your collected FULL+INCREMENTAL backup datasets, going back as far as you care to retain them for your own feeling of security.
Again, automatic "generational pruning" will delete the oldest "complete sets of backups" (i.e. FULL backup from the 1st of the month, along with all subsequent daily INCREMENTAL backups from each day of that month), so you don't have to manually manage space yourself.
I don't know what your currently lost "work folder" contains, but if you have anything that you don't want to ever lose you must surely back it up at least once on some reliable primary backup medium (if not additionally on some separate secondary backup medium, to further decrease the probability of possible loss).
Note that this automatic and regularly scheduled regimen also makes it very straightforward to upgrade hardware and reinstall Windows from scratch if necessary, without worrying about any loss of data.
It just all runs automatically every night while you sleep, guaranteeing you the protection against lost data and Windows integrity that you desire... without your having to think about it.
